About “Veteran of the Psychic Wars”

This story is delivered in the voice of the Eternal Champion, a “modern myth” experiment with by Moorcock, and occasionally his writers at New Worlds. It’s a character whose story is relived uncountable times through the history of a universe comprised of infinite parallel dimensions. The most famous of these, and probable narrator in the song, is Elric of Melnibone, the last emperor of an ancient civilization, who wields the cursed sword Stormbringer. Moorcock wrote two other songs for BÖC, one of which (Black Blade) was specifically about Elric’s struggle and bond with that weapon.

This song, on the other hand, also tells the overall story of the Eternal Champion’s endless, miserable toil throughout the multiverse, not just as Elric, but also Lord Erekose, Jerry Cornelius, Jherek Carnelian, and ostensibly infinite other incarnations (in reality expressed in various fiction, mostly by Moorcock).

The song was also used in the 1981 (concidently “cult”) classic Heavy Metal), despite not being written with that in mind. And in that context, it parallels the last story of a mute woman by the name of Taarana, who in the final act is stripped of her gear and fights the Barbarians and the evil being known as Loc-Nar, whom she ultimately kills and sacrifices herself to defeat

What have the artists said about the song?

I’ve heard statements that the album Fire of Unknown Origin was recorded in order to be used as the soundtrack [for Heavy Metal], and that didn’t work out later (for some reason). Is this true?

What you heard about Fire of Unknown Origin is not true. In the middle of recording it, we were asked to write a song for Heavy Metal. I think Albert got the movie script and wrote tunes, especially for Heavy Metal. When the movie people didn’t buy them and chose “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” instead, we used the song he wrote for Heavy Metal on our album.